Since I am perennially a man without a hat, I can make that joke in conjunction with taking delivery of my new EFTS safety squat bar.

Did some empty bar reps in the living room to get a feel for it after I attached the handles. I think it’ll work out well.

Now, if I can dispel the tightness, soreness, and swelling from my right ankle/calf/knee so I can try and squat heavy to explore my approximate 1RM tomorrow, that would be lovely. I’ll be thrilled with 405#, and not dissatisfied with anything over 365. Deadlifts are similarly mentally anticipated to have lost about 10% from my PR last year, so 455#+ is really what I’m looking for with a conventional pull.

Benching was a surprisingly non-deprecated 245# (only lost 20# off my PR despite the months and months of injured discomfort and bullshit) and my overhead press was a nearly complete shock – a 15# PR of 180# (I was really hoping for a 1xBW rep @ 190#, but 185# wasn’t getting up more than halfway).

Currently crafting a new lifting routine. The two naming candidates are “BSOD” and “666.” Number of surprised people: 0.

As previously noted, fucking off time is over. My plan right now is to go to six days a week, three lifts a day. This is informed by an amalgamation and distillation of my own experience (independently, as well as my tenure under Josh Bryant’s guidance) combined with a recent exposure to and curiosity about the so-called “Bulgarian” school, tempered by a cursory review of Jason Ferruggia’s program[1].

Yes, it’s the first of the month/year/thing, and I actually woke the fuck up and busted out the tape measure. Timeliness and shit, not to mention taking full advantage of all the resolutionist momentum that everyone else in the world is going to be bandwagoning the living fuck out of.

So, hey, here’s the state of the meat at the dawn of 2012, going into a de-load week before testing my maxes and moving into the next phase of things.

And, if you’re good, there will be Yet Another Phone Shot (YAPS) to go with each of these updates moving forward. Nothing spectacular, just me, standing around in my office wearing a pair of shorts. No lighting tricks, no flexing, nada. Those conditions are not the case in the photo at left; that’s racking 165 after doing some head-supported rows with the flattering (but very fucking hot) halogen in my garage overhead.

Under ideal conditions (smart headspace, spotter, etc), I’m pretty sure those would be 265-275, 365, 165, and 465-475, but I’m stronger all the way around than I was when I started with Josh (12 weeks ago) by about 10%.

So, paying attention to my own advice, after running up to and against my probable maxes in October, recalibration occurred and the next iteration of the upward-trending sawtooth wave pattern has commenced. Relative to the last reset (July 10), here’s how things stacked up:

Of course, losing the better part of two months to the broken hand and subsequent plague really hampered everything but the squat (since it doesn’t rely on grasping the bar, it could still be done with relative aplomb). The P&V page has been summarily updated.

A slightly different take than the “Dead Man Benching” routine from earlier in the week; rather than ramping up both exercises, the bench remained at a moderate load (~50% 1RM) for several high-rep sets.